Forty-Three Rubles

It is told that when Tzvi Elimelech was ten years old, he lived through the winter with his father, a teacher, at a Jewish-owned inn in a distant town, as families of teachers often did. One bitter night three half-frozen peasants came to the door. The innkeeper would not take them in, since they could not pay. The teacher spoke up for them and agreed to cover their keep himself.

A great storm kept the travelers there for about two weeks. When it cleared, they thanked their host and went on their way. Before Pesach the innkeeper reckoned the accounts. He owed the teacher forty rubles for teaching his children, and the teacher owed him forty-three for the guests. Gracious about it, the innkeeper said the difference could wait until after the festival.

The teacher could not bring himself to go home. He sat in a shul and buried himself in Gemara. His son found him and begged him to come see the holiday clothes that had been bought on credit, which only made the father feel worse. On the way, a coach rattled past and a parcel fell from it. He ran after it, but the coach was gone. The bundle bore no mark of its owner, and when he opened it he found exactly forty-three rubles.

At the Seder, as the boy opened the door for Eliyahu HaNavi, he called out that the coachman had come. No one was there. His father made him promise to tell no one until the last day of his life. Chassidim relate that the Bnei Yissaschar told it from his deathbed.